


Leverage, Season 4, Episode 4, The Van Gogh Job

by TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer



Category: Leverage
Genre: Analysis, Episode Review, Episode: s04e04 The Van Gogh Job, Meta, Nonfiction, Season/Series 04, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-12
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:20:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24680704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer/pseuds/TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer
Summary: Warning: Contains spoilers for the episode and the rest of the series. Complete.
Kudos: 4





	Leverage, Season 4, Episode 4, The Van Gogh Job

Open to Danny Glover’s character, Charlie Lawson, in a skating rink.

A young white man comes up, and at first, C-Lawson is happy to talk about how the skating rink used to be. Then, calling him by his first name, something that would almost always be downright rude regardless of race/ethnicity, this man accuses of C-Lawson of looting a painting, and he shows off a badge that C-Lawson dismisses as fake.

Both Hodge and Glover are awesome in this episode. I can see H-Lawson growing into C-Lawson.

The racist fake leaves after declaring the man who hired him will hunt C-Lawson like a dog, and clutching his chest, C-Lawson falls.

At the bar, Nate is talking to a fellow former insurance man. FIM has been fired due to chasing a Van Gogh painting, but now, he insists he’s found it. Or he’s found C-Lawson, but C-Lawson is refusing to talk to him.

Given later revelations, he has no right to sound so put out by this fact.

Then, he implies someone will hurt C-Lawson in an attempt to find the painting.

At headquarters, Nate and Sophie talk about the painting, and coming in, Eliot asks where his future spouses are. They’ve been sent to talk to C-Lawson, and giving the history of the painting, Nate and Sophie asks how much danger C-Lawson might be in.

A lot, is the answer.

At the hospital, Hardison is a janitor, and Parker is wearing scrubs. C-Lawson tries to leave, but Parker physically stops him. Sensing he’s aware of the danger he’s in, she promises they’re there to keep him safe.

He lays back, and when she goes over to quietly talk to Hardison, he’s shown watching them. There’s a gag of Hardison sneezing throughout the episode, and here, Parker gives him a tissue.

Next, Hardison video-calls headquarters from the hospital, and Eliot is cutely playing with the screen containing Hardison. When Nate scolds him, “No. Not- not a toy,” Eliot’s retort is Hardison is always trying to get him to learn technical stuff.

At the hospital, C-Lawson refuses to talk to Team Leverage, and so, they try to leave. However, objecting to leaving an ill 88-year-old man with a target on his back alone, Parker grabs Hardison’s hand, and C-Lawson focuses on this.

Hardison promises to talk to Nate, but stopping the two, C-Lawson says he’ll talk to Parker about what he knows.

Outside the room, Parker points out she’s not exactly the person typically employed to get people to talk. It’s usually Sophie or Eliot, and since in this case, if Eliot tried his usual method of getting people to talk on C-Lawson, Parker would end him, Sophie’s really the best choice.

Usually, yes, Nate agrees, but Sophie isn’t the one C-Lawson wants to talk to.

So, Parker tries to figure out what tricks to use, and Nate makes it clear: Just listen.

Meanwhile, gas man Eliot is at C-Lawson’s old house. The woman currently living there mentions the mould inspector out back.

Eliot goes out back, and he knows RF. It’s not clear how well RF knows him, though, because, RF withdraws a baton.

They fight, the woman comes out, and RF goes over the fence. I’m not sure how she didn’t see this, but it’s implied she didn’t. Eliot asks her questions about the house, and she mentions some old artwork she found.

Back at the hospital, C-Lawson starts his tale, and wee!Lawson is shown sharing a smile with his future love, wee!Dorothy.

Except, Dorothy is white and the sole heir to the town’s richest family.

Going forward, H-Lawson is doing something to a pair of skates whilst P-Dorothy is sitting nearby. She wants to go to the empire state building, and he has much bigger dreams. She says she doesn’t have his imagination, and he responds, “I don’t imagine; I plan.”

In the present, Eliot tells Nate there are people looking for the painting all over town. He makes it clear they shouldn’t let C-Lawson leave the hospital.

The woman comes back out, but the artwork isn’t the painting.

Over to Parker and C-Lawson, Dorothy’s dad was happy his daughter was finally showing signs of wanting to be a society girl, but he would have been less happy to know Dorothy was using her French lessons to teach the language to C-Lawson.

Yet, in the flashback he’s speaking better French than P-Dorothy when they’re hanging out alone together in the skating rink. He suggests they could go to France together after the war, and both Hodge and Riesgraf do great here.

H-Lawson isn’t even fully done saying this before he realises he just crossed a big line, and P-Dorothy has a flicker of excitement at the thought before she, too, realises that she’s never going anywhere with him. They can meet here, and maybe, they could happen to be in the same place in other parts of town, but that’s it.

“I said it as a joke,” C-Lawson says, “just so I could take it back, but I meant every word of it. I was in love with Dorothy Ross.”

Despite her realisation, P-Dorothy still says, “I’d like that.”

Her father comes in, and he and FIM look a lot alike. I actually wondered if they were played by the same actor until I looked on IMDb. P-Dorothy says she dropped her book and that H-Lawson was nice enough to pick it up for her.

C-Lawson explains how a black man making overtures towards a white woman was literally a crime, and thugs of P-Dorothy’s father attack H-Lawson. Only, Sheriff Nate steps in.

Once they’re gone, Sheriff Nate says he’s leaving soon, and H-Lawson is going to get himself killed if he stays.

And so, when P-Dorothy comes back to the skating rink, a white woman who seems to know but not condemn informs her H-Lawson has enlisted.

H-Lawson drives a supply truck, and Kane plays a lieutenant. A foreign woman approaches E-Lt, and he has a line about not having his translator.

He has H-Lawson, though, and H-Lawson warns about a sniper. Taking out the sniper, he goes after anyone else who might have been with the sniper. When he gets to the body, he pockets a book before E-Lt and others come to get supplies off the body.

Back in the present, Hardison gives Nate and Sophie the address of dead Dorothy Ross’ daughter.

In the flashback, a white man is being given a medal for H-Lawson’s actions.

H-Lawson confronts E-Lt, and the latter’s line about a policy of black soldiers not receiving medals is inaccurate in regards to real life America. There are decorated SoC since before the 1940s, and even though M*A*S*H is set at a later date than this, there was an episode where a black soldier refused a purple heart due to the fact his commanding officer was deliberately sending black soldiers on highly dangerous missions so that they’d either die or be injured so badly that they were discharged.

Now, steering slightly away, I’m not sure I agree with Kane playing the lieutenant.

First, E-Lt is racist, and I’m not going to deny this or defend him on this front.

The character being racist isn’t what I take issue with, though, to be clear, I take issue with racism itself. My thing is: From everything I’ve read, this character is supposed to be unapologetic and comfortable in his racism. Maybe what I’ve read is wrong, but this character doesn’t come across like this to me.

This doesn’t minimise anything. He’ll actively support racist policies despite knowing it’s wrong, and for all he feels shame and self-disgust for doing it, he’ll still do it.

What it does do is make this character potentially bigger than he was supposed to be.

I don’t doubt Kane could play an absolutely hardcore racist, and for all I know, he has in some role I don’t know about. But however the two performers feel about one another outside of the show, they’ve built such a strong chemistry that, even when they’re playing genuinely different characters, in Kane’s case, I still read a sense of respect and caring in his character’s feelings towards Hodge’s.

Hodge, on the other end, does sucessfully dial his end down. H-Lawson’s hurt and angry at E-Lt, but it’s what’s being done, not who’s doing it, that almost breaks him. I doubt C-Lawson ever really thinks of this lieutenant, one of the many white men who screwed him over, but due to Kane’s acting, despite him only being in two or three scenes as this character and the fact C-Lawson clearly never read any of this in the interactions, I’m left with the sense H-Lawson was a bigger part of E-Lt’s story than shown.

Back to the story, H-Lawson reads what he took from the sniper, and then, he takes the painting from the supplies E-Lt had the others take.

Meanwhile, Sophie is talking to Dorothy’s daughter, and DD is reminded of her Aunt Cecilia, a war bride who taught Dorothy how to play a musical instrument at the skating rink.

In a flashback P-Dorothy is more interested in skating than her lesson with S-AC when H-Lawson comes back. He asks to talk to P-Dorothy privately.

Present, Hardison calls to distract DD so that Sophie can snoop around the house. She finds a key to a safe deposit box.

Nate gives orders, and in C-Lawson’s room, there’s a sweet image of Parker and him sitting across from one another with clear mutual affection radiating. Aw.

In the past, H-Lawson says, if they sell the painting, they can go to Paris and everywhere else P-Dorothy wants to go. She agrees, and they recruit S-AC to help them.

H-Lawson leaves, and seeing this, Sheriff Nate asks his bride, S-AC, pointed questions.

In the present, Hardison, Eliot, and Sophie are trying to get access to the security deposit box when Eliot comes across another thug. This one owes him money, but the thug offers to split the money from the painting.

No dice.

Over in the hospital room, Parker doesn’t understand why H-Lawson and P-Dorothy couldn’t just leave in the middle of the night, and he’s gentle in pointing out some of the issues they faced.

At the rink, P-Dorothy has a performance, and her dad is encouraging. When she goes to practise, however, he orders his thug to track down H-Lawson.

H-Lawson is at a train bridge, and during the performance, P-Dorothy slips away with S-AC’s help.

In the woods, H-Lawson comes across a mob led by P-Dorothy’s father.

Elsewhere, P-Dorothy comes across Sheriff Nate. He hasn’t told her father what’s going on, but he isn’t happy with her and H-Lawson getting his wife to help them.

In the woods, H-Lawson uses a fake grenade to get away from the mob. Then, he comes across P-Dorothy wearing a yellow cloak at the train bridge. The mob follows, but Sheriff Nate shoots said mob away.

It’s not a happy ending, though. She decides not to run away with him, and I don’t blame her for this. I’m just sad for both of them.

He insists on her taking the painting. There’s a line he repeats throughout the episode, “I can take care of myself,” and this is true. The painting was so that he could take care of her, too. Now, he’s leaving it so, if she ever decides to try to find him or truly needs anything, she’ll have a chance of taking care of herself.

They share a kiss, likely their first and definitely their last, and his last words to her are that he loves her. Jumping on the train, he leaves.

In the present, Parker is teary. She focuses on the painting and him just giving it up, but he never wanted riches. Telling her he’s had a lifetime of adventure, he finishes, “I’ve had a remarkable life.”

The reason he finally came back was to see Dorothy.

Parker asks about where he thinks the painting might be, and he makes it clear he doesn’t care where it is.

Over in the bank, Sophie and Hardison determine Dorothy sold it, but via earbud, Nate thinks otherwise. He directs Hardison and Sophie to come back to protect C-Lawson and for Eliot to come with him.

At the rink, Nate and Eliot discover the painting in the musical instrument Dorothy played.

FIM appears with a gun, and Nate pretends to burn the painting. Eliot takes out the thugs, and presenting the real painting, Nate makes it clear FIM won’t be getting it.

Team Leverage all assembles in C-Lawson’s room. He’s going to donate the painting, and Nate tells him they found out Dorothy hid the painting and saved up tips she got from playing the musical instrument in case C-Lawson ever came back.

As Sophie will privately point out, they didn’t find this out, but Nate’s justification is, “It's the best story.”

Hardison and Eliot do a not-handshake handshake, and Eliot hands sneezing Hardison a box of tissues. Everyone starts to leave, but stopping Parker, C-Lawson looks at Hardison in the doorway. He urges her, “Don’t waste time.”

Going over, she takes Hardison’s hand.

Fin.


End file.
